Igor S. Korntayer

Who is Igor S. Korntayer?

Igor S. Korntayer, S. Korn-Teuer, born in the 1890s, killed by the Nazis c. 1941. Polish Jewish lyricist, poet, coupletist, actor. He arrived in Lodz Yiddish theater in 1918, with a translation of Lermontov's Spanish Blood; soon afterwards, at Julius Adler's request he translated Shakespeare's Othello. He knew several languages and had a knack for dramaturgy.

He then moved to Warsaw, where he was hired in 1926 by the Scala Theater to write song lyrics, for instance to Osip Dimov's Yoshke Muzikant. In 1927 he wrote lyrics for the operetta Velvele Shmudnik. He wrote many songs for the revi-teaters Scala and Sambatiyon. In 1935 he acted with Alexander Granakh in Alter Katsisne's Velt-gevisn in Lodz. He wrote a play called Nokh Halbe Nakht which debuted June 4, 1942.

He is best known for the song Vu ahin zol ikh geyn? written with "tango-king" Oskar Strock. Two other notable songs are Kum tsu mir, a tango, and Mayn libeslid, both to music by Pawel Brajtman, premiered in yiddish theaters in Vienna and Bucharest. On a lighter note, he wrote Yiddish lyrics to the song Sex Appeal made famous by Eugeniusz Bodo in the 1937 movie Piętro wyżej.